How to shape your dog to go to a mat (2018)

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About this episode

"Shaping" is simply the process of breaking a behavior down to its smallest components and slowly raising your criteria in order to build new behaviors. By reinforcing successive approximations, it's possible to train dogs to do almost anything they are physically capable of doing! In this episode, Annie goes over some key things to think when shaping a new behavior, and describes how to shape a dog to go to a mat, or what she calls a "sticky spot." A dog who knows how to go to a mat will make an excellent guest at holiday dinners: You can "shape" a pup to have a specific spot where he will have learned to stay put and be calm, no matter how good that stuffing smells!

Transcript and show notes at

Transcript

Annie

Hey there, this is a rebroadcast of an episode I recorded in 2018, about how to get your dog to go to a specific and small spot using shaping. It's essentially about what shaping is and why it's so awesome. And here is a practical application of it. I actually recorded that around Thanksgiving. So I talk specifically about how having a dog go to a spot and learn to be comfortable on that spot can be helpful during big family meals.

But of course there are lots of times when you might want a dog to go to a specific spot. And the reason I'm airing this today is because today is the last day of our Dog Training in 21 Days Challenge. If you have been following us on Instagram, you've seen our student leader, Leah, demonstrate these different challenges each day. And you've seen some of the people who have dogs who have been working through these challenges. Thank you to everyone who has participated. It's been a lot of fun and you can still get the entire dog training in 21 days course on which this challenge is based totally for free through the end of the month. Just go to schoolforthedogs.com/DT21days, and use the code DT21 days at checkout.

But before I play the episode, I just wanted to mention two things quickly. One is we have just opened up enrollment to our Professional Course. It's a six month long program. For the first time, it is going to be completely virtual. There are only four spots and applications are due soon, May 1st. So if you're interested in applying, first of all, go to schoolforthedogs.com/professionalcourse where you'll find more information and the application. But also tomorrow, Thursday, April 22nd, I will be going live on Instagram at 3:00 PM Eastern to answer questions about it. And I will probably also try to post the audio of that later in the week. But come on by to our @schoolforthedogs Instagram account if you do have any questions. Or go ahead and shoot me an email in advance annie@schoolforthedogs.com.

And the other thing I just wanted to mention really quickly is that I am putting together what's turning out to be quite the podcast episode about pet insurance. And I would love to hear from listeners to hear what you are doing about pet insurance. If you have pet insurance, if you have had pet insurance, what your experiences have been, I have created a survey that you can get to at schoolforthedogs.com/petinsurance.

Alright, without further ado, here is this episode from 2018 called How to Shape Your Dog to Go to a Mat:

Full transcript and show notes